For this episode of The Future Is A Mixtape, Jesse & Matt discuss the slow, spiral reckoning of Ridley Scott’s much-celebrated and increasingly influential film Blade Runner, whose long and winding road lead to a sequel, Blade Runner 2049. While detractors of the original film might feel they’re viewing a sexy-time noir featuring little more than robots and porn-jazz, for the entranced, the film’s hypnotic imagery and ruminations on universal themes like humanness, memory and belonging still keep many cineaste-hearts aflutter. After the blockbuster ascendency the Star Wars franchise and SF’s increasing maturation as a cinematic genre, Ridley Scott’s formerly “one-off” was released in 1982, and quickly disappeared at the box office and inside film critics’ confused typewriters. However, unbeknownst to many, this leftover lasagna turned into the cult film of cult films. Blade Runner would later grow an organic fanbase from Arty Nerds, Noir Addicts and Cyberpunks, all of whom would despoil their underoos over spinners, unicorn origami and whether Deckard was or wasn’t a replicant. Seeing blinking cash-registers in their eyes, Hollywood producers sought out Denis Villeneuve as their architect to extend the franchise with Blade Runner 2049. Your meta-guidance-counselors, Matt & Jesse, will provide a spoiler-bonanza of both films, weigh out Villeneuve’s sense of cinema, and examine how the sequel’s repeater bleakness short-circuits better questions and ideas. The co-hosts will finally imagine how this film might be retrofitted or retold, narratively speaking, and roust its viewers into utopian dream-scaping.

Forbes Magazine (Japanese Edition): On Why Blade Runner 2049 Failed for Its Opening Weekend in the Box Office. {For those that can’t read Japanese, I will summarize what Tomoko (my badass wife!) translated for me--while we were both laughing at the article’s assessment: the film failed due to it 1) being aimed at middle aged men in their forties; 2) it wasn’t appealing to women, and henceforth, not of interest to dating couples or married folks; 3) and lastly dads couldn’t take their kids to the movie because of its “R” rating}

Vice on YouTube: “Inside the Making of Blade Runner 2049” {Interviewer to Ryan Gosling: “Do you feel optimistic about the future of mankind?” Gosling pauses, gurgles, snorts, and then they both laugh . . .